“Well, I’m glad that was all worth it,” Edalwin said. “I think you are going to be back to normal in a day or two of rest. Run along now and freshen up. I think we may have company soon, so come straight back. Peppers, keep an eye on him.”
Jack took a couple steps and found a limp that worked well. He gave Sally a smile as he passed her and went down to the base of the hill. A small stream gurgled along the forest floor a couple trees into the forest. He splashed around and tried to get the remains of the fever sweat off his body, and drank deeply from the cool, crisp water. The air was deliciously cool and had none of the summer heat of Texas. Just as Jack was thinking it might be a good idea to lie down for a moment or two, Peppers starting meowing and walking back up the hill. He trudged after the cat, and found Edalwin sharing fresh berries with Sally.
“Now, both of you sit here and enjoy the berries. Our visitors are almost here, but, no, please don’t look around. Stay next to me.”
The berries were good. They had the thickness and sweetness of a strawberry, but were perfectly round and purple. As Jack worked on his fourth berry, men suddenly stepped up into the gaps between the stones. All told there were twelve of them, and Jack realized that several were actually women with their hair pulled back. They were all dressed in leathers and forest colors, and well armed. All of them had large hunting knives, and there were several bows, some staffs, and a couple swords as well.
“So, Jack, remember,” Sally whispered, “don’t ask why. Don’t ask, ‘Why are we sitting here on Stonehenge eating berries while surrounded by Robin Hood’s merry band of men?’ Don’t ask how we got here.”
Jack heard an edge to Sally’s voice and figured it was panic. It made him wonder if his own sense that his head was floating through space was some weird form of panic. Edalwin rose with her staff in hand and rotated slowly, looking at each person in turn.
“You wear the robes of a Green Wizard,” a man said, “and you are sitting here on a wizard’s hill as if you just arrived from another world. Thing is, we haven’t seen much of the Greens in, oh, two hundred years, so I find myself skeptical.”
He was tall and lanky, and never looked up from using a huge knife to clean his fingernails while he spoke. When he finished, he carefully sheathed the knife, took his staff that was leaning against one of the stones, and crossed his arms, cradling his staff crosswise his body.
“Of course,” the man said, “there’s the odd Gray here and there, and we are always hearing rumors of wizards who wear the Black and seek the Red, but no Greens, not since the old man disappeared.”
“I don’t understand. What of the Wizard’s Council?” Edalwin asked, facing the man.
In reply, he spat to one side, and then continued to stare at her.
“I see. So, much has changed in my absence. I am Edalwin, who was of the Red, but has returned to take up the Green.”
Jack had kicked fire ant hills before, and the result of Edalwin’s words were the same. A flurry of motion and shouted questions followed, and one of the men charged up the hill with a knife at the ready. The tall man shouted a command and raised a hand for calm, and the others obeyed. Clearly the leader, Jack thought. He was an impressive man. Jack guessed he stood about six foot four, with broad shoulders and athletic poise. The man with the knife halted and waited, but did not sheath his weapon.
“Edalwin, you say. A name that has been used to scare many generations of children. Are you sure you want to take it up? I am named Gerlock Forestdean, a mage of the Second School of highest order, a ranger of the forest Darksbane, and captain of this company of rangers. We’re no wizards, but you’re in our forest.”
“Gerlock Forestdean,” Edalwin said, “I am Edalwin Wizard. I apologize, but I cannot allow you to apprehend me, nor detain me in any way, as I must see to the protection of these two children, whom Drakin Wizard seeks. After that, I will submit to the Wizard’s Council for judgment.”
“A pox on the Council! You’ll deal with me!”
“How can a Forestdean say such a thing?” Edalwin asked. “Were you not commissioned by the Council? What of Arameth?”
“Do not speak of Arameth!” Gerlock said, and then drew in a long, slow breath. “My order has moved outside the Council’s jurisdiction. We have not the patience for oppression by old men. I need your real name now.”
“Enough!” Edalwin said, and raised her staff toward the sky. “I will submit to the Hall of Telling at first chance to prove the Green, but do not doubt me. I am Edalwin Wizard, and I will be recognized!”
As she spoke, a visible pulse of energy shot out of the staff into the tree canopy. For a moment, the forest went totally silent. Then the trees all around the hill slowly bowed toward her. Jack and Sally turned in circles, looking in amazement. The effect on the rangers was even more profound. Most dropped to their knees where they stood, and all looked about in wonder.
“Well, Edalwin Wizard who seeks the Green,” said Gerlock with a catch in his throat, “thus you are named, and I testify to this company that thus you are, for I could read you in that working, as I’m sure you intended. But you’ll find no satisfaction in the Hall of Telling with the Council, for they have sealed it off and outlawed its use, and Arameth is no more.”
The news sent a visible shock through Edalwin, and the trees all groaned back upward, released from the power of her spell. “I don’t understand.”
“I am sure you do not, absent the past two hundred years,” Gerlock said. “I know you to be Edalwin, and my gut says you tell the truth when you say you seek the Green, for all the good it will do you, but I need an oath from you of safe passage if we are to move beyond this impasse.”
Edalwin nodded wearily. “I, Edalwin Wizard, swear no harm shall come to you by my hand or at my command while sheltering with you. And truthfully, I wish you no harm afterward either. I assume you have a camp nearby, yet I need rest now. It’s been two days without sleep, and I healed the boy of a Seeker’s wound only last night.”
Gerlock nodded to Edalwin, and gave a few sparse orders to the other rangers. They set about making a small camp at the base of the hill, and Jack witnessed countless small acts of magic as they worked. Living plants seemed to do the bidding of the rangers as they worked. Thorny plants avoided them. Acorns fell from a tree when requested. Within minutes a fire was burning with a slab of venison roasting on a stick and a sleeping shelter was prepared with a soft bed of leaves. Edalwin sat at the base of the hill with Sally at her side and seemed oblivious to all of it, until they brought her a sizable portion of meat and a wineskin.
“Edalwin,” Jack whispered to her as she ate, seated on her other side. “If they are all wizards, why did he say no they aren’t?”
“They aren’t wizards, Jack. They’re mages of the Second School.”
Jack paused and tried to pick his words carefully. “Can you please tell me things in a way that makes sense?” He used his best western accent and added, “I’m not from around these here parts.”
“All right, Jack,” Edalwin said, smiling at him, “but no more after this. I need food, then sleep. What’s the first question most people ask in the game 20 Questions?”
“Animal, vegetable, or mineral,” Sally said from the other side.
“Right,” Edalwin said. “That’s more or less the First, Second, and Third Schools of mages. Now, I must rest a few hours.”
“So that Gerlock guy said they were Second School mages, right?” Sally said. “So that’s vegetable?”
Edalwin nodded as she stood. “Plants in general, yes.”
“What’s a Seeker?” Jack threw the question out as she took a step toward the shelter the rangers had made, and for a moment, he thought she would ignore him. She slowly turned and faced him.
“A Seeker is a creature summoned by a powerful wizard using dark arts, and given a form to inhabit. It can be shown most any object that has some association with a person, and, given enough time, find that person wherever they are, in thi
s world or Earth.”
“But, Edalwin,” Jack said, “if Drakin used a Seeker to find me, how did he have something of mine to show the Seeker?”
“I don’t understand it,” she said, shaking her head. “It seems the two of you have met before. Now, no more.”
“Are you really two hundred years old?” Sally said.
“Older,” Edalwin said, turning away from them. “I’m feeling every single day of it and more right now.”
With that, Edalwin walked over to the shelter, crawled in, and went to sleep. Jack lay back in the grass, unsettled by the thought that he and Drakin had met before. He thought he’d remember something like that, but had no memory of him. He idly watched the morning sun filter through the canopy of leaves as he contemplated what all of it meant, and was asleep in minutes.
Jack woke in the early afternoon. The rangers were cleaning up the campsite in a way that left no trace of its existence, even whispering to the grass that was bent to straighten it. He looked around, and spotted Edalwin sitting with her arm around Sally. Their heads were leaned in together and Edalwin was quietly talking to her. Sally looked like she had been crying. Jack felt a hollow emptiness when he realized he had nothing to lose back in Texas worth tears.
“Shall we return to our camp with our guests, then?” Gerlock said. The rangers slowly came together in a loose group, nodding their agreement.
Gerlock turned to Edalwin. “Perhaps you would walk with me, Edalwin Wizard, so we can discuss our current fortunes, and you can help me understand what brought you back to this land. Fortuna, Dirl, see to our trail.”
Two of the rangers, a woman and a man, dropped to the back as the group headed into the trees. Jack drifted to the back and watched as they quietly sang. Behind them, all visible signs of the passage seemed to disappear. The forest grasses stood back up, leaves shifted back into place after being kicked, and small limbs that had been bent straightened.
The rangers led them on a seemingly random route through the towering trees for what felt like hours. At some point, a ranger offered him water from a skin, and Jack drank some thankfully. Other than that one small interaction, he was left alone. Jack noticed he wasn’t really being ignored, but that the rangers seemed a quiet group. Aside from Gerlock and Edalwin talking at the front of the group, no one spoke to one another.
The silence suited Jack. He had a lot to think about. He reached out again with his senses and felt the hill with the standing stones. It was off to his left again, confirming his suspicion that the rangers were leading them in a wide, meandering spiral around and away from the hill. The hill had a pull of its own flavor, but mingled with it was the flavor of the hill in Kansas. Fragments started to fall into place for Jack. Perhaps the hills were some sort of portal between the worlds. Jack reached out further all around, trying to find a mix of flavors that included the Red Oak hill. He detected the pull of several other portals, some near, some far, before he finally sensed what he wanted. Jack hurried to the front and fell in beside Edalwin. She turned to him with a raised eyebrow.
“I think I figured out something important,” Jack said, “but I don’t know what it means.”
“Go ahead, Jack,” Edalwin said.
“Okay, so the hill we left,” Jack said, pointing toward it off to the side, “seems to be mingled together with the flavor of the hill in Kansas.”
“Hold for a moment, young sir,” Gerlock said, “do you mean to point to the hill behind us?”
“It’s not behind us,” Jack said. “We’ve been sort of looping around in a huge spiral. I figured you knew.”
“Well, I did,” Gerlock said. “I just, ah, did not expect you to be able to tell.”
“Anyway,” Jack continued, as Gerlock muttered to himself, “I’ve been sort of reaching out, and I’ve felt the pull of a bunch of points, and I finally found one that feels like the twin of the Hillacre. Do you think this has something to do with what Drakin is after?”
Edalwin walked a few paces, her brow furrowed in thought. “Jack, I’ve been trying to puzzle it out without success, but yes, that sounds terribly significant. I just don’t know why it matters. I have always sensed something in you. More particularly, I’ve always been able to sense you yourself, just like I would sense one of the Lodestones. But I don’t know what Drakin intends, or of what use any of this is to him.”
“Are the hills lodestones?” Jack asked.
“Lodestones with a capital L, yes. As I believe you have figured out, they are a wizard’s doorways between the two worlds. Wizards can feel them, and pull themselves and others through them at the times of transition, dawn and dusk.”
“Wizards and me,” Jack said. “Or at least I can feel them.”
“Wizards and I,” Edalwin said, “not wizards and me.”
As they spoke, Gerlock came to a stop. When Edalwin looked at him with a raised eyebrow, he swept an arm out toward a particularly dense area of wood and undergrowth.
“Our home,” he announced. With that a path opened up through a thick, thorny bush, revealing a small vale with a stream running down the middle of it. As he stepped into it, Jack didn’t see any homes at first. As the rangers entered, however, they each headed to different spots around the perimeter and disappeared into the thick vegetation.
“Our guest quarters are right over here,” Gerlock said, leading them around to the right a short distance. Up close, Jack saw the outline of a door in the brambles and twigs, as well as several windows. Gerlock swung the door open, and they walked into a nicely furnished apartment built entirely of living vegetation.
“I will bring some normal clothes for the children shortly,” Gerlock said. “You will find a hot spring for bathing in a back room. We will have dinner prepared shortly.”
“This is kinda amazing,” Sally said. “Dibs on the hot tub.”
Chapter 5
WYVERN
FAR AWAY FROM the ranger home, Councilor Transom stood in his richly appointed apartment in the city of Fortress. He waited until the loud beat of wings was gone before opening the door to his balcony. He’d caught a glimpse of the creature that made the deliveries once and had not liked what he had seen. Since then Transom had carefully avoided seeing it. A bundled package lay at his feet, which he grabbed and took inside, closing and latching the door behind him. Transom took the package to his office and dumped it on his desk while he poured himself a glass of brandy. He drank it in one gulp.
With his nerves steadied, he cut the cord and pulled open the coarse bag. Heavy shackles lay within. He lifted them out, and a folded paper fluttered down from them. Setting the shackles on his desk, he retrieved the paper from the floor and unfolded it. His eyes widened as he read the letter, then narrowed in thought. What game was this?
He stood and found a stout belt bag in his wardrobe to hold the shackles, and strung the bag onto his belt. The weight felt all wrong, and the soft, fur-covered leather of the belt wasn’t really suited to heavy weights, but he was unwilling to have such an object out of his sight. The shackles secured, he lifted the servant’s bell on his desk and rang it.
~~~~
Back in the ranger’s home, Jack squirmed on his leafy seat in what passed for the ranger’s dining hall, a long, narrow room situated within the vegetative wall of the camp and split by the stream entering the vale. The leather pants he had been given chafed a bit, and the shirt felt scratchy compared to the T-shirt it had replaced.
The food, however, was wonderful. He thought he’d puzzled out Edalwin’s 20 Questions reference and realized Sally had gotten it right away. Clearly, mages of the Second School were good with plants. He had no idea where they were growing their crops, but dinner included boar, roasted corn and broccoli, rich bread, and a drink that Gerlock claimed was ‘hardly intoxicating.’ Edalwin had glared at Gerlock when a cup had been offered to Jack, but had permitted him one serving. Jack couldn’t tell that the earthy drink had affected him at all. It was a complete coincidence that his lips were stra
ngely numb that evening.
In spite of his nap earlier that day, sleep came easily to Jack that night, and he woke late in the morning feeling truly refreshed and healthy. His leg was free of pain, and the scar had tightened down, no longer looking pink and puffy. Jack was surprised to learn breakfast consisted of leftover dinner, and was doubly surprised by how much he ate. Apparently, healing from a Seeker wound was hungry work.
After breakfast, he found Edalwin standing with Sally and several rangers. As he approached, she fished something out of a pocket in her robe.
“Here, put these on,” Edalwin said, “and don’t take them off. Not for a single second. Not ever.”
She handed Jack and Sally each a leather cord, which they slipped over their necks. Dangling from Jack’s cord was a small silver acorn. He looked over at Sally’s and saw a silver pinecone. Jack suddenly felt like the world had gone very quiet, and realized he could no longer sense the constant pull of the Lodestones. It left a void, but he decided staying alive was a fair trade for feeling empty inside.
“Jack, in Texas I was hiding you, though my powers were very limited,” Edalwin said. “Obviously, Drakin was able to work around my efforts with the Seeker, but it took him years, so I think you’re safe. Sally, I really doubt you need one, as Drakin has no specific link to you that we know of, but it doesn’t hurt to be thorough.”
“Are you sure you have to leave?” Sally said.
“Leave?” Jack said. “What are you talking about?”
“I need to see the mess that has become of Arameth’s legacy with my own eyes,” Edalwin said, “and do what I can to rectify it. Gerlock tells me the city that built up around the Fortress of Arameth is simply called Fortress, and I need to go there. Hopefully my business won’t take long. I’ve sent the cats ahead, just in case I need some company. Remember, Sally, keep hope. I’ll have you home as soon as possible, but only once your life is safe.”
Edalwin tightened the rope holding her gray travel cloak closed over her green robe, and gave Jack a big hug. She hugged Sally as well, and after nodding to Gerlock, looked up and disappeared. Gerlock saw Jack’s surprise and pointed up to the south. Jack looked, and saw Edalwin standing on the branch of a huge tree for a moment before she disappeared again.
The Lodestone Page 3
